Vim 6 has this cool client-server protocol. I use it all the time to edit a file in an existing gvim, like so

$ gvim --remote [filename]

Today I left myself logged in at the console at work, and when I got home I realized I had left vim running with files unsaved. I think I even left it in insert mode. I wanted to edit these files at home. So I ssh'd to the machine and started playing with the --remote commands.

The Vim help was a bit cryptic:

--remote-send {keys} Send {keys} to server and exit.

After a lot of failed attempts, I finally succeeded in getting the remote vim to save its buffers and quit.

$ DISPLAY=:0 vim --servername GVIM --remote-send '<Esc>:wqa<CR>'

A couple of notable things. The environment variable DISPLAY has to be the display of the remote vim, and you have to be able to open that display. The client-server stuff is done through X.

The <CR> is important. This part eluded me for a long time. The {keys} are just like keys you would press if you were editing at the console, and you have to press enter, or vim won't do anything.

Check your .swp files to make sure Vim really closed the files it was editing. Vim provides little feedback as to the success or failure of what you're trying to do remotely. Nonetheless, it's clearly a useful feature to have available.

To get better feedback you can use the :redir command to redirect messages to a file, like this:

vim --servername GVIM --remote-send ':redir >> outputfile<CR>'

You can also evaluate remote expressions:

vim --servername GVIM --remote-expr 'mode()'

this will tell you what mode vim is currently in and

vim --servername GVIM --remote-expr 'getcwd()'

will tell you what directory vim is working in

I never have to worry about leaving a file open, unsaved. I used to do that a lot, and have developed a nervous habbit of saving a LOT.

If you are like me, and don't have to worry about that, then you can simply type "killall vim", and all open vim's will close themselfs. If you just want to kill one type "ps -ef | grep vim" to find the pid. You can then type "kill 1234" where 1234 is the pid.

vim keeps swp files for all opened files. Just kill the vim process that bothers you, then open the file through your ssh connection. You will be prompted with several options, choose 'R' to recover. Save your file as something else, just to be sure, and then sort things out with the .swp file.